NBC joins Viacom in YouTube copyright battle

NBC Universal is joining Viacom in the battle against Google’s popular video sharing service YouTube over copyright infringement issues, according to a piracy-related court statement filed in court last Friday, in an effort to force YouTube to effectively filter copyrighted material from its website.

The case involves a separate party, Los Angeles News Service operator Robert Tur, who sued YouTube in July for allowing its users to appropriate his famous footage of trucker Reginald Denny being beaten during the 1992 Los Angeles riots. In a filing submitted late on Friday to the U.S. District Court of the Central District of California, NBC Universal and Viacom submitted a friend of the court brief opposing YouTube's bid to dismiss the copyright infringement suit brought by Tur.The brief also alleges that YouTube engages in activities that are reserved to the copyright holder, such as manipulating and modifying the content copying, reformatting, and adapting the works for further disseminating them.

Copyright continues to be a major issue for the video sharing website; just a few days ago YouTube was hit with a class-action copyright violation suit filed by English football’s Premier League, and on Monday, videos of the 12-round fight between De La Hoya and Mayweather Jr. had to be taken down after HBO filed a copyright claim – although no legal action was taken by HBO.